This blog provides observations, suggestions, and instructions for using technology for genealogy. I'm a working technical writer and I use these tools daily.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Virus Protection on my oh so expensive Tablet

As I have said in previous posts, I got my ASUS tablet on the run just a few days before going to RootsTech. I should have asked more questions before I ran out of the store, clutching my purchase. As it is, I found out at RootsTech (Galaxy Girls) that surfing the web on a tablet is no different than surfing the web on a PC or laptop. Ya' gotta have virus protection.

So after throwing caution to the wind for a few weeks, I started looking at virus software. Because my ASUS is an Android device, I could find all sorts of free virus apps in the Android App Store. You don't get much of a description when you start looking at the apps. However, you get an eye full when you start reading the reviews, which are extreme. The app is either the best stuff you ever thought about downloading, or after downloading, the app turns the tablet into a paper weight...rendered unusable. Then you get the inevitable tales of what the person had to go thru to recover from the download. All in all, the talk will scare the bejesus out you. It certainly scared the bejesus out of me.

As a result, I decided to haul myself (and the ASUS) into Best Buy to see what they had to say. Well, $21.39 later, I'm the proud owner of Kaspersky Tablet Security. I can't say at this point if this was the best move or not. However, I figure that for this minimal sum, I'm in better safe than sorry territory. We'll see how having the app on the tablet affects it's performance. Virus software is notorious for slowing systems down. Perhaps the tablet won't even notice it's there.